In the known art, there have been two ways of making an absorbent garment web into point of sale items. One is to put refastenable tabs, such as adhesive tape or hook and loop combinations onto the garment body, in the manner of an infant diaper, for later use to secure the back panel of the diaper to the front panel. A second is to bond the side edges of the front and back sections together to make a fixed waist band, in the manner of a training pant which is slid on and off the wearer like underwear. To remove such a garment if it becomes soiled it is necessary to destroy the side seam or tear the side panel in order to remove the garment like a diaper, as convenience and hygiene would dictate.
Designs for known fasteners and side seams have usually been vertically oriented, i.e., the zone of contact between the cooperative fasteners, or side seams, has typically been parallel to, or along, the long axis of the wearer, i.e., running from waist band to leg hole. This has made economic sense because the fasteners, or side seams, are applied parallel to the long axis of the garment chassis making for ease of automatic manufacturing.
However, these vertically oriented fastening seams suffer from some drawbacks. Such drawbacks include the fact that when the fastening seam is vertical, a large force may be necessary to open the seam, which can be inconvenient. An opening of a vertical seam along its wide dimension, i.e., from front to back when the seam is vertical, requires force applied to a greater surface area of the seam than necessary. Also, opening such a seam from the top is difficult without introducing lateral motion, e.g., front to back. The introduced lateral motion tends to pull the released portion of the seam both out and back as the separation continues, resulting in a wider surface area of separation and thus a greater required force. Also the seam area may be subjected to undue stress during removal or fastener disengagement. This stress can result in a tearing away of the fastener mechanisms from the underlying garment structure, or even tearing of the garment structure itself, especially in the case of hook and loop fasteners which can increase engagement bond strength over time.
Further, the known cooperative refastenable structures are designed to be fastened at the front, side, or back of the garment. Fastening engagement at the back of the garment is typically awkward in terms of finding and engaging the fasteners especially when, e.g., applying or reapplying a diaper or training pant to a squirming infant. Fastening integrity at the front of the garment is adversely affected by stresses incurred from leg movements that bend and pivot the garment. Further, due to leg movement stresses, front fastening often increases the incidence of red marks and an undesirably tight fit of the garment across the upper thigh.
There is therefore a desire for a seam, such as a hook and loop refastenable seam, that is easier to open, by encouraging separation of the seam material along its narrow dimension while moving progressively down the wide dimension; for example, tearing open the seam from top to bottom, or bottom to top, when the seam is vertical.